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Singapore Hangs Smuggler

SINGAPORE, Friday, Dec. 2 - As a small group of protesters stood silently outside the prison in the early light, the authorities here on Friday hanged a 25-year-old Australian man convicted of trying to smuggle heroin through Singapore.

Singapore rejected pleas for clemency from the Australian government and threats of an anti-Singapore boycott by opponents of the death penalty there.

Officials at Changi prison were scheduled to execute the man, Nguyen Tuong Van, at precisely 6 a.m. The Home Affairs Ministry confirmed in an e-mailed statement that the execution had been carried out, The Associated Press reported.

Mr. Nguyen was arrested in 2002 with 14 ounces of heroin at Singapore's Changi airport on his way from Cambodia to Australia. He was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death last year.